Peter Conover Hains is the only U.S. soldier known to have served on active duty in both the Civil War and World War I. He graduated West Point in June 1861. His classmates included George Custer and Alonzo Cushing.
As a 21-year-old first lieutenant he commanded a detached 30-pounder Parrott at First Bull Run. The gun, listed with Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery for the battle, weighed about 6,000 pounds and needed a ten-horse team. Around 6 a.m. he ordered the first Union land artillery shot of the fight.
He transferred to the engineers and became chief engineer of the XIII Corps during the Vicksburg Campaign. His earthworks and approaches helped Grant close the ring around the city. He was brevetted three times.
Hains stayed in the Regular Army after the war. For the next forty years he built lighthouses, helped select the Panama Canal route, and designed the Tidal Basin in Washington so the Potomac would stop flooding the capital.He retired as a brigadier general in 1904. Congress made him a major general on the retired list in 1916.
When America entered the war he volunteered again. In September 1917, at age 77, the Army recalled him as chief engineer of the Norfolk Harbor and River District.He was the oldest officer on active duty in the U.S. Army during World War I.A younger man got to go to France because the old engineer took the stateside job.
Hains retired a second time in 1918 and died at Walter Reed in 1921.
56 years between the first gun at Bull Run and a World War I uniform.
